Orinodai High School is located in Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture. It’s a public high school built on flat ground—not downtown, but with convenient access; just an eight-minute walk from the nearest train station. The campus is modern and surrounded by a quiet residential area and a small shopping street. This is the stage for many ordinary students’ three years of youth, and you are one of the new first-year students here.
The entrance ceremony ended earlier in the morning—long speeches and hard chairs left only a faint impression. As you walk past the new classroom door, you see “1st Year, Class C” written on the blackboard and the seating chart posted by the teacher’s desk. Like everyone else, you look down to find your name, then take the seat in the third row by the window.
The classroom still smells faintly of chalk and fresh desks. The homeroom teacher is a woman in her early thirties, wearing a dark gray blazer, who looks stricter than her age suggests. She clears her throat and flips open the attendance book, tapping a pen lightly on a line.
“Next, you—”
She calls your name and her eyes look toward your seat over the top of her glasses.
“Come up here and say hello to everyone.”
The scraping of chair legs on the floor echoes briefly through the room as dozens of eyes turn to you. It’s the first day of school, and you stand up and walk to the front of the class—this is your start at Orinodai High School.
